


A Different Perspective

by startrekkingaroundasgard



Series: Clint Barton Bingo [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Body Swap, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 01:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18272897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekkingaroundasgard/pseuds/startrekkingaroundasgard
Summary: After an explosion during a mission, Clint and the reader wake up in the Compound’s med bay having swapped bodies.





	A Different Perspective

You cringed at the bright light above you, scrunching your eyes shut to stop it from burning your retinas. It didn’t achieve much, though. Without the visual input of the medical bay to distract your mind it was flicking back to the last thing you remembered: being trapped in a lab on the brink of collapse as a raging fireball engulfed everything.

A sharp stabbing pain ran along your side as you shot upright, tangling the drip feeds in the process. You reached up to untangle them, barely able to resist the urge to tear them right out of your skin, when the absolute silence in the room hit you hard. You couldn’t hear the birds outside nor the soft buzz of the air conditioning which drove you crazy every time you ended up here.

Your heart rate began to spike, certainly not aided by the distinct lack of beeping coming from the monitor by your side. The screen was flickering, you could see you were alive - it seemed incredibly important to remind yourself of that - however something was obviously very wrong. A cold sweat began to creep over your skin, your fingers trembling as you reached out to press a button to call for assistance.

One of the nurses came in to check on you almost immediately, her cheeks a soft pink as she muttered something you supposed was meant to be comforting if you’d been able to hear her. She mostly kept her gaze on the clipboard in her hands but stole glances in your direction whenever she thought you weren’t looking. You were flattered that she might find you attractive beaten up and sporting all manner of burns and bruises but you had bigger things to focus on.

When she spoke, it sounded like she was stuck inside a bubble. “Is everything okay?”

“I can’t hear anything,” you said, the words like sandpaper in your throat. Your voice didn’t sound right, either; it was lower than you remembered, thick and gravelly like you smoked twenty cigarettes an hour but you were relieved to finally hear something. All you could do was hope that whatever toxins and poisonous gases you’d breathed in back at that lab hadn’t permanently destroyed your vocal chords and that in time it would return to normal.

“Oh! Of course, I’m sorry.” She immediately began signing, leaving you none the wiser as to what was happening. Everyone in the team knew a few basics when it came to ASL because it was always helpful to be able to speak to Clint when his hearing aids failed but her hands were moving at a hundred miles an hour and you were completely lost.

You realised that she was waiting for an answer so just nodded, not really sure what else you could do at this point. Whatever you’d agreed to prompted her to leave you alone once again. You were tracking her through the window of your medbay when you saw… No, that couldn’t be right.

It didn’t matter what you tried - shaking your head, rubbing your eyes, pinching yourself - it made no difference. As if today couldn’t get any more ridiculous, laying there in the next room across the hallway was… you. Your unconscious body, strapped onto a bed.

Every muscle cried out as you jumped from your bed but you had to know. Dragging the drips and monitors behind you, you shuffled over to the mirror and laughed anxiously at the face staring back at you. You prodded and poked your cheeks, pulled on the skin around your neck, to see if this was some elaborate kind of trick. A stupid prank of some kind.

It wasn’t.

Somehow, the explosion at the lab you’d been investigating had put you in Clint’s body. His shirtless, muscular, truly rather magnificent body. No wonder the nurse had been blushing earlier.

You wanted - needed - to talk to Clint but before you had even opened the door to your bay another more aggressive nurse ushered you back onto your bed. She handed over a pair of hearing aids and a placed a cup of steaming coffee on the side table, having assumed that was why you - Clint - had left the bed in the first place.

“Please, Mr Barton, we’ve told you a million times not to leave the medbay until Doctor Cho has cleared you to leave. If you move too much then it might tear the new synthetic skin before it’s finished grafting.”

Even with the hearing aids in, you still struggled to make out what was being said. It was like being underwater or trapped in a bubble; you could barely discern any specific words and the ones you did didn’t sound right at all. You didn’t make a deal of it, though. You just nodded and smiled, taking a sip of the coffee as she left.

The second the door closed, you spat out the boiling monstrosity that Clint called coffee and wiped your mouth aggressively on the back of your hand. It was like drinking battery acid and it suddenly made a lot more sense why Clint was so… him if this was what flowed through his veins.

Setting the mind altering substance masquerading as coffee as far away from you as humanly possible, you climbed back into your bed and closed your eyes. Maybe if you went to sleep all of this would turn out to be a bizarre, drug induced dream. But, sadly, the universe seemed to have other plans.

Less than five minutes later, the door to your bay was flung open and Clint toppled in, sans all life conserving machinery that had moments before been the only thing keeping you alive. There was no grace in the way he handled your body; he just stumbled around like a bull in a china shop. It wasn’t a new thing but it was certainly odd to see yourself acting that way instead of with your usual grace.

Clint stood in front of the mirror and began to twist, looking at your body from every angle. You weren’t entirely convinced that he was addressing you and not just talking to himself when he said, “You’re seeing this too, right? I’m not completely insane? Oh, sweet, coffee.”

“Don’t you dare put that stuff in my body,” you hissed, grimacing at the thought. It had tasted bad enough hot; you didn’t want to think what it would be like lukewarm or what damage it might do to your internal organs. “And, please, stop squeezing my tits!”

“But I just wanna see how they feel. I can’t believe you haven’t had a feel around, too.” Clint twirled around and shook his hips, hands sliding slowly over every inch of his body. It would have been awkward enough to watch Clint dance like that in his own body but wearing yours? You had never in your life moved in such a way, for good reason; whenever you tried to be ‘sexy’ you ended up more like a drunk giraffe than anything desirable. Even with Clint in control, you were more convinced than ever that your body was not designed to move that way. “Hey, does it really count as groping if I’m touching myself?”

“You aren’t yourself!” you shouted, as if he might have forgotten. Lowering your voice in the hope of avoiding the attention of the nurses, you said, “You’re in my body! So it’s like your groping me and I’d really rather you stopped!”

He immediately dropped his hands to the side, as uncomfortable at the thought as you were. He cleared his throat and perched himself stiffly on the edge of a worktop. However, unable to sit for more than five seconds without fidgeting, he grabbed a hypodermic needle from the side and began to twiddle it around his fingers while he thought. “So, uh, what do you think happened?”

“We switched bodies.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I figured that out already. I meant do you have any idea what caused it?”

“The last thing I remember is scouting out that AIM lab before it blew. Whatever they were messing with must have caused…” You waved your hands around, gesturing between the two of you. “This.”

“How do you think we fix it?”

“Why do I have to come up with a solution?”

You hadn’t meant him to hear your complaint, so used to his hearing aids not being able to pick up your private mumbles. However, in your body, he had no such troubles and answered with a surprising honesty. “Because you’re smarter than I am.”

“Oh. Right. Uh, thanks.”

“It’s true,” he shrugged. “So, what have you got?”

You pushed yourself off the bed and began to pace as far as the drip feeds would allow (which was absolutely not far enough to be effective in relieving your stress). “This isn’t exactly my area of expertise, Clint. I don’t know whether this was magical or some kind of science experiment gone wrong. Hopefully we can find a solution before I need the bathroom.”

“Why?”

Narrowing your eyes at Clint, you waited for the obvious to hit him. His eyes widened when it clicked and he looked down at his own body with a mix of excitement and intrigue. He didn’t even get to open his mouth before you hissed, “Don’t you even dare. If you so much as think about that again then I will take one of these cute little scalpels, grab some of that awesome morphine that the nurses hide away and have myself a game of life size operation.”

Clint barely flinched at your threat to dismember him, it being the most common threat to be thrown around the Compound. Who’d have guessed that a bunch of super soldiers and spies had such anger issues? Instead he tilted his head to the side, wearing a knowing smirk that looked completely out of place amongst the rest of your soft features. “As if you’ve never thought about it. You must have wondered what it feels like for a guy when we whack one out.”

“Your way with words is truly spectacular,” you said, trying and failing to hide the blush that was now burning your cheeks. You cleared your throat and found a really fascinating empty space on the wall to stare at. “Either way, we should find Strange see if he can reverse this.”

“Does it have to be him?” Clint whined. “We could wait it out til Thor and Loki come back.”

That was certainly something you’d never expected to hear him say. After all, he didn’t have the best relationship with a certain raven haired god after the whole mind control incident. To prefer Loki’s company over Strange’s spoke volumes.

“I know you guys aren’t on the best of terms -” you started.

“He tried to kill me!”

You rolled your eyes at his outburst, knowing it to be a complete over reaction. “Technically he never laid a hand on you. And it was only after you nearly destroyed the Sanctum.”

“That was absolutely not my fault. How was I supposed to know that shooting a arrow at his cape would set it on a murderous rampage? Those magic doodahs should come with warning labels. No piece of upholstery should be capable of doing that sort of damage!”

It truly was a miracle that Clint was allowed to go anywhere, honestly. Once was almost always enough to get him permanently banned from any building and the only reason he was welcomed back was to apologise for his behaviour. In his defence, it was never entirely his fault but you had to admit that trouble followed him around like a stray dog.

Shaking your head, you pulled the conversation back on track which was a feat easier said than done; once Clint got started on a rant he stopped for almost no-one. “Look. He’s our best bet. Whether it’s science or magic, I’m sure he will know a way to fix this. You’re just going to have to suck it up and deal.”

“Fine,” Clint grumbled, his inner 5 year old shining through. “Do we have to do it right this second or can we get something to eat on the way?”

“Really? That’s what you’re thinking about now? Food?”

“I mean, I’m also thinking about sex but you I figured you’d be more amenable to food.”

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

He nodded, face falling enough to make you instantly regret your words. You pushed yourself up from the bed and carefully pulled the needles and wires from your arm. It stung to no end - you really should have let the nurse do that - and you had to grab a cotton bud to wipe away the small amount of blood that rolled down over the defined muscles. If it had been your own body you wouldn’t have bothered but you wanted to return it to Clint in the best possible condition.

You crossed the small room and hopped up on to the worktop beside him, hoping that it was strong enough to hold both of your weight. Clint stiffened slightly as you took his hand but relaxed almost immediately. He even leaned into you, bumping your elbows together as he stared at the ground.

“I didn’t mean anything by that, you know.”

“It’s cool. I know it’s the truth.”

“No, Clint. I will not hear anyone talking shit about my friend. You are a wonderful man and while it’s true you are a bit of a mess… Like seriously, that coffee? What is even in that? And, yeah, you have major issues and probably need to see a therapist more than the rest of the team put together…”

Clint shoved you so hard that you nearly fell off the worktop - apparently you were a lot stronger than you’d realised. “I really appreciate this amazing pep talk but I gotta ask: are you going somewhere with this? Or are we just going to sit here and analyse all my faults?”

“Sorry,” you muttered. “What I mean is that you are awesome despite all of that. Because of all that. You’ve been through the worst and made it out with your sense of humour and snark and kindness in tact and I’d never have been able to say it to your face but you are special to me, Clint, and I hate that you don’t see it.”

You flinched away when he moved towards you, scared that he was about to try shove you away again, but Clint just wrapped his arms around you in a tight embrace. It was slightly awkward, you could both admit that, but it was genuine and overflowing with unspoken emotions. 

“You’re the best. Come on then,” he said, sliding off the worktop and sending a huge pile of paperwork flying in the process. Clint tugged on your hand and motioned towards the door. “Let’s go find the good Doc and see if his blanket of death has forgiven me. And Y/N…?”

You sighed. “Yes, we can stop and get pizza and ice cream on the way.”


End file.
